Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. She understands that, for Labor, supporting families is fundamental to what we are on about. What we are delivering to families is what we want to be defined by. Everyone on this side of the parliament knows that supporting families is fundamental to the prosperity of our nation. We also know that many families around Australia are facing serious cost-of-living pressures, and that is particularly the case with the cost of their children’s education. We also know that it is our responsibility to help those families with those pressures. That is why we are delivering improvements in the family tax benefit, why we have increased childcare assistance, why we have introduced the education tax refund and added other benefits to the education tax refund and why, from 1 January next year, we are delivering Australia’s first national paid parental leave scheme. We intend to deliver on our election commitment to help parents with teenagers aged between 16 and 18. As the Prime Minister has said many times, many of those who have had teenagers know that they do not get any cheaper as they get older. We will be increasing family tax benefit part A by up to $4,000 a year on condition that those young people go to school or participate in vocational education and training.

This is going to help around 650,000 families over the next five years. That is 650,000 families who will be better off, because this government understands the pressures on families. This was never delivered by those opposite. We understand just how important it is to make sure that families have that extra financial support for the cost of their teenagers, whether it is for the extra books they need at school or the extra bills. We know teenagers have bottomless appetites. We are saying that, in return, they have to go to school or be in vocational education and training. We know those opposite like to talk about these issues. They go on and on about them. But when they were in government they never delivered this change to the family tax benefit system or linked it with an obligation to make sure that those children go to school or are in vocational education and training.

We are also going to deliver a health check-up for four-year-olds, a requirement that will be linked to the payment of the family tax benefit part A supplement for parents who are on income support, which is worth around $720 a year. Once again, these changes reflect our values and say to parents: ‘We’ll be there to support you. We will provide the support, but we also expect you to make sure you get these health checks done, that you get your children to school and that you make sure that your teenagers are staying on at school or getting a vocational education.’

The only promise we have heard from those opposite is one to increase the cost of living for families, a great big new Liberal tax that would have seen the cost of everything that everyone buys at the supermarket go up. That is the Liberal Party’s approach to family policy. Ours is all about improving services. (Time expired)

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